FDA rushes J&J, NewLink Genetics Ebola vaccines to clinical trials

Friday, September 5, 2014

Another Big Pharma player is joining the hustle toward an Ebola vaccine as the death toll surpasses 1,900 victims, eclipsing the total number of people who died from the disease in all previous outbreaks combined.

Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ) on Thursday announced that the FDA would fast-track the development of an investigational combination vaccine it’s developing alongside partner Bavarian Nordic with the help of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a branch of the National Institutes of Health. With the FDA blessing, J&J hopes to test the jab in clinical trials in early 2015.

The vaccine regimen combines elements of two different technologies from each company–the MVA-BN platform from Danish Bavarian Nordic and AdVac from J&J’s vaccine arm Crucell, based in the Netherlands–for a prime-boost vaccine that uses one vector to prime and another to boost immune response.